


I'm Not Doing This

by seitentaisei



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bilbo Baggins Saves the Day, Bilbo knows about plants please let him help you, Gen, poisonous plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seitentaisei/pseuds/seitentaisei
Summary: After eating a handful of blueberry-like fruit, Thorin is having a bit of trouble breathing, but he's leery of letting the hobbit help him- no matter how well the man claims to understand plant life.





	I'm Not Doing This

“I’m not doing this,” Thorin says, turning his nose up to the flower paste that the tiny hobbit was holding up to him. Thorin doesn’t trust the tiny fussy little man, and he definitely wasn’t going to trust them with his health of all things. “It’s just a stomachache. It’ll pass.” 

The tiny man has the audacity to look sternly up at him. It might have worked on a child in the hobbit village, but on a dwarf and a king, it meant nothing. 

“Just do it,” he says. “Rub this on your chest and your breathing will be easier.” 

According to the hobbit, the berries that he had eaten during the night on his watch shift were poisonous. It looked and tasted like strange blueberries, and since their rations were low, he grabbed a handful of them. It wasn’t the worst in flavor, but it had burned his throat on the way down. So he had decided that maybe he wouldn’t grab a handful and bring it to the rest of the camp… 

The fact that breathing had become hard really quickly had made it very obvious that it was a bad idea… He doesn’t need the hobbit to confirm that, and he definitely wasn’t going to take his armor off. Exposing his chest to someone he still didn’t trust? Let said stranger rub some strange medicine on his skin?

No, definitely not. 

“NO!” Thorin shouts, “I said no!” 

“You’ll stop breathing and you’ll die, you stubborn dwarf!” 

“And I said it’ll pass you awful fussy little man. Now have off and leave me be!” The tone in his voice is harsh and snarling, and the hobbit, easily startled, backs away. 

But when he’s gasping and having trouble breathing morphs into severe pain in his throat and chest, Balin and Dwalin forces his armor off and soon his chest is slathered with a thick paste filled with flower petals. When breathing becomes easier, a tonic is poured down his throat. Well, if he got sick, his kin know who to go to for revenge.

It still takes two hours for his breathing to steady out and to feel better… and twenty more minutes washing his chest to get the flower paste and petals out of his thick black hair. 

Thorin is a king and one who values his honor. So when he’s finally steady again, he goes to find their hobbit to thank him. It takes another 15 minutes to find him out of the camp and in the woods. 

“Master Baggins!” he calls out. 

The hobbit startles and turns wide eyes on him. “Oh, Master Thorin,” the hobbit replies. “I was finding some edible berries and roots for you.” 

He holds up a nice sized bag to show him. It wasn’t things dwarves would normally search out on their own, but after years on the road, Thorin’s company is not full of picky eaters. They were thriving in the Blue Mountains, but all the older members of the company would remember going hungry on the roads before they found a new home. 

“I can make a nice stew for us out of this, and the berries will make for a nice dessert. I’m glad to see you looking well, Master Thorin.” Bilbo approaches him and almost reaches out to touch him. Then he frowns and instead awkwardly pats his own chest. “You don’t feel any more pressure?” 

Thorin shakes his head. “No pressure. The things you've collected, they will more than do. I believe Kili and Fili may return with meat as well.” He takes a breath, and he swallows his pride. “I must thank you for the service that you did for me, despite my protests. It was much appreciated by me and mine.” 

Bilbo pauses and smiles up at him. “No thanks required. More than one fauntling has eaten berries like that and it wasn’t the first time I’ve had to use that remedy.” He takes Thorin’s hand, and he puts a bunch of blueberries into his palm. “Next time, if you have any questions about plant, please don’t hesitate to ask.” The expression of pride and happiness that Bilbo focuses on him is brighter than anything he’s seen from the small hobbit so far.

Strange because the hobbit is so dirty from the travel and dropping weight faster than any of the rest of them. To return a little kindness with such feeling… it was touching somehow. 

Thorin nods at him after a moment. “Yes, yes of course.”

Bilbo nods and moves past him again back to his foraging. For a moment, Thorin watches him and then he looks down at the blueberries in his hand. They’re ripe, so dark they’re almost black. He takes a breath and pops them into his mouth. Sweet with just an edge of tang. 

Perfect, Thorin thinks, and he reconsiders their resident hobbit as he walks back to camp. 


End file.
